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I'll start with a personal story. I just bought a car. After driving my '85 Toyota for about eight years, it was finally time to move on. Now I'm a poor graduate student, an exploited laborer, and I'm okay with that. It's just part of the deal. Despite this, though, I still need some wheels. Not that I drive very often, but considering I live in the middle of nowhere, transportation is at times necessary. The old Camry filled the bill perfectly for a long while. But, sadly, she's just about dead. I wanted a dependable car. Something that, given the proper maintenance, wouldn't let me down any time soon. I looked at a Golf, but they have some pretty bad reviews: fragile, poor part quality, great mileage though, but didn't quite fill the bill. Looked at another (newer) Camry - too expensive for what I could afford (surprisingly - though I should mention that my selection was limited. This was a rush job as I'm visiting my family for the holidays, and my car broke down while away from home, so I need a new one before I leave. As if more stress were something I wanted out of this season
). I'll cut to the chase: I ended up buying an entry level, 2001 German-brand car. Good, dependable car (cheap price thanks to the fact it was a repo) that I don't have to worry about being stranded with as long as I do my part as an owner.I didn't buy this car because it was a fancy-schmantzy German chick-magnet. On the contrary, I actually feel a little (or a lot) irresponsible for buying it. But the fact is that this car was the best quality vehicle I could get while remaining within my modest price range. As I strapped in to drive it home I wrapped my fingers around the leather steering wheel, fiddled with the climate control, and struggled (read: failed) to turn the radio on )because I couldn't figure out the anti-theft device that rendered it inoperative) I started wondering why so many bells and whistles were so necessary. For the last eight years my car had no amenities beyond power steering (not even a radio, and only one hub cap). Heck, I didn't even have a working defrost until two winters ago, and I was happy about it. In fact, I straight up miss the Camry, my stomach is in a little bit of a knot just thinking about the fact that it'll soon be donated. All I wanted in a new(er) car was something that wouldn't die on me. I got that, but I also got a whole lot more. And why?
The answer is that the United States is based on a bloated, fictional middle class, and it's killing this country. The elite in this country is so tiny that everyone that is not destitute is shoved in to this "middle class" category. Growing up I was well cared for, never destitute, and I know my parents and their parents before them considered themselves middle class. Okay, that's fine. But my best friend growing up came from a family who also considered themselves middle class, and there was a huge difference in economic status. We lived in a trailer park (albeit, a nice one) until I was four years old, then moved in to a nice single story home in town, while my friend lived in a huge suburban home, three big cars in the garage. This represents an apparent gap that is in reality wider than the example indicates.
So lots of people are middle class. Granted, and this is important because I'm certainly not ignoring this fact, there are lot more destitute poor in this country than those from insulated white communities likely realize. And this number of poor greatly outnumbers the elite. However, the point here is that "middle class" is a huge percentage of people in this country. Which brings me back to my new(er) car.
Cars are an obvious status indicator in this country. Even as a kid I knew that BMWs and Mercedes were nice rides, usually driven by people with money. So how was I able to afford one? The answer is that car companies have mirrored Americans' desire to be "upper class," or at least separate themselves from the "lower middle classes" in some way. As such, Aston Martin and Rolls Royce - vehicles usually only available to the social elite - are no longer the only nice cars out there. Today companies like Audi and Mercedes still make their top of the line car - for example, the Mercedes CL is 120 grand, and they even make a "limousine" that's a whopping $300,000. But at those prices Freddy Middle Management can't afford to drive a nice car, but he's got some extra money to burn (or a desire to be in debt for status') in order to exemplify Veblen's concept of "Keeping up with the Jones,'" so what does he do? He buys the cheaper option.
The first thing I thought when I peeked at my new car in the garage was: "Man, that looks just like a Honda Accord." Except for the leather steering wheel, that is. The bells and whistles, that's it. The car isn't that much better made, and maybe even worse made than a Honda of a lower price (we're talking new cars now since used vehicles vary by so much). But there's that German company's emblem on the trunk lid that says (as T-Pain would say) "I got money in the bank, what chu think about that?" I think Veblen had it right.
So food for thought: consider the blogs title - "The Poor, Inflated Middle Class." Think about it in reference to the fact that the middle class in this country is both huge and in debt (and I guess overweight, too if you think about "inflated" in that way), and think about it in terms of empathy. Those poor American middle class folks that are subject to the requirement of keeping up with the Jones' and spending more than they earn. It's interesting stuff.
